When trying to determine the average cost of hair plugs there are many factors that must be considered. Most people think you just go to a hair doctor and they stick some hair in the bald spot and it starts to grow. This is really not all there is to it. In fact, the hair restoration community has been actively seeking better and more cost effect treatments for hair loss in both men and women for decades. Ever since the first hair plugs were used in the US back in the 1950’s.  The cost of hair plugs is actually going down as these new procedures and techniques are utilized.

The causes of male pattern baldness and female pattern hair loss are very closely tied together. Both of the conditions are caused by a genetic predisposition to hair loss in certain areas of the scalp. This is usually manifested as balding or hair thinning at the vertex and crown of the head while other areas of the head, such as the occipital or back of the head, continue to exhibit good growth. These areas of continued hair growth can play a big part in determining the hair transplant cost. The better the donation area the easier it is to harvest the healthy hair follicles and so the cost of hair restoration goes down.

The mechanism for pattern baldness is quite simple. There is a natural occurring hormone in our bodies, dihydrotestosterone (DHT),which is formed when the so called male hormone testosterone is metabolized. This appears to act on the body in two ways. One is to have a negative affect on the male urinary tract, in particular on the prostate gland. In fact, the way DHT was determined to be a cause of hair loss was in trials for drugs to treat enlarged prostate. During the trials it was noticed that the men who were taking the drug actually saw a decrease in hair loss and some experienced hair growth. Further testing showed DHT to be a contributor to male pattern baldness.

Some of the hair follicles on the men and women who show signs of pattern baldness seem to have a genetic predisposition to be affected by the free DHT in the blood stream. There are receptors on these follicles that attach to DHT and start the miniaturization process. The complete mechanism is not understood but it appears that the certain areas of the head have these follicles that are affected by the hormone. Thus the term pattern baldness is uses. As the hair goes through its natural cycles of growth and rest the dihydrotestosterone shortens the growth phase during each cycle and eventually the follicle has been shrunken to a point that it can not continue to produce hair shaft material. At this point the hair falls out and baldness is exhibited.

Cost Of Hair Plugs

The size of the area that is genetically predisposed to pattern baldness is a major factor in determining the cost of hair transplant procedures. Most clinics and cosmetic surgeons will adjust their charges based on how many hair units need to be transplanted from the donor area to the balding patch. Small areas can require a few hundred transplant units with the average amount being a thousand. If the pattern baldness is more advance then of course this number will increase and the overall cost of hair implants will be more.  Thus a person who has lost most of the hair on the affected area of the scalp is going to have a higher hair plugs cost than someone with only hair loss at the vertex of the head.

The other major factor in the cost of hair replacement is the per unit cost. This can vary from about $3 to $7 in the US. So as you can see the overall charges for hair plug surgery can easily reach anywhere from a few thousand to several thousand dollars.
When determining per unit costs the physician will look at such things as fullness of donor area and color and texture of the natural hair. It takes more thin, blond hair to give good coverage than thick, black hair unless the underlying scalp color is very light. If that is the case then more dark colored hairs are needed.

When determining whether you can afford a hair transplant procedure the best thing to do is check out several options. Many clinic advertise on line now and you can get really good information by visiting there sites. Once you have a couple you are interested in then meeting for a free consultation is very highly recommended. The cost of hair plugs is irrelevant if the procedure is not performed properly.

]]> http://hairplugsguide.com/cost-of-hair-plugs/feed/ 0 http://hairplugsguide.com/hair-transplant-cost-guide/ http://hairplugsguide.com/hair-transplant-cost-guide/#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:53:41 +0000 Albert http://hairplugsguide.com/?p=81 Determining a fair value for a hair transplant cost is difficult to tie down directly but there are some good assumptions that can be make to give you a ball park figure of what it will cost. The sad fact is, there are millions and probably billions of dollars that are spent every year on hair loss remedies that are supposed to cure baldness but in realty they don’t. Once a person has a spot or area on the scalp that is completely bald there is really hardly any chance at all of getting the original hair to grow again. This is because of the condition that caused the baldness in the first place.

Cost Of Hair Transplant

The vast majority of baldness is caused by a condition known as pattern baldness. The most commonly known form of this is male pattern baldness that affects men but there are also lots of instances of female pattern baldness. Before you determine the cost of hair transplants you really should know what caused the problem to start with so you will have some good questions to ask when you visit the hair transplant clinic.

Male pattern baldness results in an actual dying off of the hair follicles that produce the hair shaft material. This is caused by a build up of DHT on the follicle which stops the flow of nutrients and oxygen. As this slowly occurs you can see the hairs start to get thinner and thinner and they eventual wither away and fall out. At this time the follicle is mostly inactive and will become encased in fibrotic material within a short time. When this happens the follicle will never produce hair again. The interesting thing with men is the hair at the sides of the head and back are not susceptible to this problem. Thus even if the entire top of the head is bald there is a good chance the surgeon can find ample hair to transplant from the back of the head that will continue to grow for years. This good donor area greatly reduces the hair transplant cost.

Cost Of Hair Transplants

By using this donor area as a place to get individual hair follicles the surgical procedure is shortened and thus the hair transplantation cost is reduced. There is another method known as Hair Follicular Unit Extraction in which individual hairs are removed and then placed in the bald spot. This method can utilize hair from all over the body but it is more expensive than the standard method. The hair transplant cost with this method is more and the surgery takes longer but there is no removal of scalp material and no scarring.

With the standard method you can look at a few rules of thumb to get an idea of the cost. In the US, you can usually expect to pay between three and seven dollars for each hair follicular unit that is transplanted. Each of these are known as [hair implants] or grafts and are actually composed of one to three hair follicles in a bunch because that is how they grow naturally.

The other variable is the area to be covered as this is in direct relationship to the number of hair unit grafts that must be implanted. Depending on the size of the area you should expect to have several hundred to a few thousand individual grafts. It really depends on area to be covered and also the color and thickness of your hair. Only a cosmetic surgeon who specializes in hair loss can make that determination.

There is also another option that is becoming very popular. Many people are taking surgery vacations. Countries such as Brazil and Thailand offer packages for a vacation and a cosmetic surgery procedure. Most of the surgeons have been trained in the US and Europe so their results are top notch.

This is just another option when looking at the hair transplant cost.